The Hindu Kush Himalaya ( HKH ) region and its mighty glacier are facing deep trouble . Even if the world attain the most ambitiousParis Agreement goal – to limit global warming to 1.5 ° C above pre - Industrial levels – one - third of the glacier could be lose by 2100 . Under 2 ° C of thawing , a probable yetundesirable scenarioat the current time , half of the glacier will melt away .
Worse still , if current movement continue and we strive 5 ° C heating , then we could be count at losses of up to two - thirds of the neighborhood ’s glaciers .
These are the chief findings ofa 638 - pageboy reportby the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development ( ICIMOD ) that ’s been compiled over the past five old age by over 350 scientists and policy experts from 22 countries and 185 organizations .
When you get wind aboutclimate alteration and melting glaciers , you will most probably recollect about the Arctic and Antartica . However , the HKH ’s sheer amount of crank imply it ’s sometimes referred to as the world ’s “ Third Pole ” .
“ This is the climate crisis you have n’t hear of , ” Philippus Wester , master scientist of Water Resources Management at the ICIMOD , said in astatement . “Global warming is on track to transmute the frigid , glacier - covered mountain heyday of the HKH cutting across eight countries to stripped rocks in a little less than a century . "
place to Everest , K2 , and many other record - crush meridian , the HKH spans an area across Afghanistan , Bangladesh , Bhutan , China , India , Myanmar , Nepal , and Pakistan . It also supply urine to a fifth of the worldly concern ’s population and check a wealth of alone biodiversity . break this importance , any level of melting in the HKH could potentially spell out some serious fallout .
Wester lend : “ encroachment on people in the region , already one of the existence ’s most fragile and hazard - prone mass regions , will roam from decline air befoulment to an step-up in extreme weather events . But it ’s the see reducing in pre - monsoon river flows and change in the monsoon that will hit hardest , bemuse urban pee systems and solid food and zip production off kilter . ”
The glacier of the HKH have already pull back over the past decades as a effect of rising world temperatures due to carbon emission . Some of these effects are being feel by the region ’s inhabitants , however worse could be yet to come if the problem stay on side - lined by policymakers .
“ There are rocky times ahead for the region : between now and 2080 , the environmental economic and social status laid out in the report could go downhill , ” append Eklabya Sharma , lieutenant managing director general of ICIMOD . “ Because many of the disasters and sudden changes will play out across country boundary line , conflict among the region ’s countries could easy flame up up . But the futurity does n’t have to be bleak if governing work together to change by reversal the lunar time period against melt glaciers and the innumerable impacts they unleash . ”
